Thursday, February 18, 2010

Accepted to NY Connection!

I have been offered one of the 20 spots in Actors Connection's NY Connection, taking place next month from March 20-24. The event will be an intensive 5 days (10a-10p each day) spent working with and showcasing to agents and casting directors.

I plan to bring my A game! I just finished Jandiz Estrada's (Mackey Sandrich Casting) film class at Actors Connection last night, and I plan to use her spot-on feedback to prep my monologues...as well as a lot of prayer.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Three Auditions + Grace & Race

Just a quick update on my recent auditions:

-This last weekend, I auditioned by video submission for a student film entitled Finding the Words. The casting person was very happy with the submission and passed it on to the director.

-On Friday, I will audition for one of the twenty spots for actors at the NY Connection taking place in March, which would put me in front of agents and casting directors and give me the opportunity to learn from them for 5 days straight, 10am to 10pm! Wowzers. I have a goal to get an agent by June 1, and I would plan to use this to try and open that door.

-On Sunday, I have an audition for a movie musical called Picture Perfect. I am going out for the role of the rebellious daughter who is immersed in her struggle with an eating disorder.



And on Friday, I will join some other actors who are part of Redeemer Presbyterian's Actors Group to present an evening called The Drama of Grace & Race. Come out and see it! 7:30pm at the Redeemer Offices (1359 Broadway 4th Floor New York, NY 10018). I have not seen the piece I am performing yet, so it might be an exercise in cold reading!

The vision for the event is "to see the Redeemer Body embrace the Gospel call to redeemed relationships where the ethnic/racial other is pursued." There will be a discussion after the readings, which is the main focus of the evening.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Coming Into My Own

I am currently taking the Feature Film Boot Camp class at Actors Connection, taught by Jandiz Estrada, casting director for Mackey/Sandrich Casting. The class is working to push me to the next level of my acting ability, and it is both scary and exciting! Baz Luhrmann's Sunscreen Song was right: it is worth it to "do one thing every day that scares you."

The first week, Jandiz got me on indicating. If you are not an actor, that means showing the audience what you are doing instead of actually doing it. I was pretty bummed after that, but with the help of friends (shout out to Boggie, Virginia, and Neil) and time spent in prayer (shout out to Jesus), I came back strong and faced my fears with the scene for the second week. This time, I found a new kind of freedom that I've been looking for in my acting. The big thing I learned: If I remember that acting is not everything, and I don't take myself or acting too seriously, then, ironically, I can act to the best of my ability, the way I have it in me to act.

Jandiz has been saying that in this class, we will work on developing our own system of preparation for roles. Here's how I prepared last week before class in order to not take things too seriously: I ate unabashedly in front of everyone on the subway, made sure to drink the Dr. Pepper that came with my Chinese taco stand meal (knowing that it would produce burps and that this would fit the scene, which I thought of as taking place after dinner), and decidedly did not walk down the streets of Manhattan to get to class as though I was a beautiful, aloof actress/goddess on the pages of People magazine, but rather just as myself, as Elizabeth, messiness, imperfect posture, and all.

And it worked! I am learning so many life lessons from acting. Very grateful to have the chance to pursue this calling.